Thread: Acoustic build no 1

Really appreciate you taking the time to document all your work on the guitar. I came across one of those Stanley planes with the flex sole at a flea market Saturday and almost bought it, but it was pretty rusted up. I finally found a Bailey plane, one of those with a top like an iron plane that's screwed to a wood sole, that was in good shape. Been looking for a good one for awhile. I also came across a fine Bailey- Stanley jack plane. I plan to use the Bailey plane for final passes before glue up. Got them both cleaned adjusted and sharpened and working great. Thanks again for taking the pics, great to see a fine craftsman in action. Mike

Hi Mike ,thanks for the appreciation but I cant wear the fine crafsman bit on this, from making furniture to this acoustic it has been a steep learning curve so far, with a number of mistakes so far that I hopefully wont make again, and I'm sure there will be more ,

Almost every stick of timber I have touched since leaving school 30 years back has had to be made straight ,and this is the oposite ,lol , it's funny but I only realised this two weeks back considering how much time and thinking effort it was taking to get things done , I was looking at it saying ,"there is the sides of the neck and the strings and maybe part of the bridge" that is straight, ok ,also parts of the head and end block which need a mirror to be seen,but that is it ,the rest is totally bent,

I went to look at your album a while back to have another look at that amazing headpiece work you did but could not see any pics,would love to see more of what you have been up to.

Your planes sound good, A flea market in the US sounds interesting , How much does a rusty compass plane go for in Newark ? and what were the prices of the others ?

While I have been typing this up I just had a look at where you are, Looks like you have a lot of forest around you , what type of timber is it ?

cheers Rob

Originally Posted by auscab

Hi Mike ,thanks for the appreciation but I cant wear the fine crafsman bit on this, from making furniture to this acoustic it has been a steep learning curve so far, with a number of mistakes so far that I hopefully wont make again, and I'm sure there will be more ,

Almost every stick of timber I have touched since leaving school 30 years back has had to be made straight ,and this is the oposite ,lol , it's funny but I only realised this two weeks back considering how much time and thinking effort it was taking to get things done , I was looking at it saying ,"there is the sides of the neck and the strings and maybe part of the bridge" that is straight, ok ,also parts of the head and end block which need a mirror to be seen,but that is it ,the rest is totally bent,

I went to look at your album a while back to have another look at that amazing headpiece work you did but could not see any pics,would love to see more of what you have been up to.

Your planes sound good, A flea market in the US sounds interesting , How much does a rusty compass plane go for in Newark ? and what were the prices of the others ?

While I have been typing this up I just had a look at where you are, Looks like you have a lot of forest around you , what type of timber is it ?

cheers Rob

The compass plane I saw was $70 US, it's the first one I've come across in that style, but it was pretty rough. I'm working on designing a full size acoustic similar to the one I already built and want to patent, the first one wasn't any bigger overall than an electric guitar, only slightly thicker. I'm having a bit of trouble increasing the size using my idea. I'm probably over thinking it, should just start making some sawdust and see what happens. I'm going to try laminating my sides instead of bending them, I've never had much luck steam bending parts but have done a lot of laminating with good success and don't have to worry about springback. I know what you mean about no straight lines in a guitar, but it looks like your off to a great start. Lots of good timber here, poplar, oak, walnut, cherry are the most common. Here are some pics of the neck joinery and the last electric I designed and built. Mike Attachment 148141

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The guitar looks great,that must be the mahogany we talked about, did the shellac work out? love that neck join too, A forest of oak walnut cherry and poplar,amazing

cheers Rob

That guitar is Kaya Mahogany and has an oil and wax finish. It was fast and easy to apply but lacks durability. It is an easy finish to repair but I plan on using shellac from now on. The guitar you had given me advice on for applying the shellac got set aside, I robbed the neck off it to build my first acoustic. I finally worked out some bugs in the design of my dreadnought sized acoustic and I'm about ready to start it. When it's done I'll post some pictures, I can't show any during construction till I get the patent pending. I came up with some improvements over the first one, so I'm holding off submitting the patent till it's finished. Hope it all works out. I'll be checking in to see more of your progress, I think your going to have a great guitar when it's finished and you'll probably want to start another, as building guitars is addictive.Mike

I pulled the back out of the go bar press last Monday,to flick it with my finger it has a more solid " tic tic " sound than the laminated three ply sound of a cheap guitar back that we have in the workshop that we sawed up ,if I hold it at one end and knock it ,like knocking at a door it ,has a ring ,where as the cheap sawn up back has no ring and sounds flat and hollow. so hopefully thats a good sign of things to come

I decided when glueing in the braces that I would cut the curves in their ends later, , to shape the curves I made a brass and cherry jig, the brass I sawed out on the band saw,and linished off the rough edges , this sits each side of the brace so that when the chisel comes dowm it finishes it off at 3 mm "brass thickness" . with the other end of the brass jig I will be able to depth gauge the mortice in the kerf lining

Pic 3 and 4 . One end of the cherry jig feel guages it to 17 mm , the other does the curve mark

Pic 5 , I hogged out with a gouge and mallet, I call it my poke mallet, we use it to knock apart chair frames for re glue mainly , it has a leather end and is jarrah,it worked well reaching through the sticks of the press with my right arm and getting at the chisel in my left.

Rounded the braces with a nice old moulidng plane,they can be a bit a bit of a fiddle,but when you get them going they are great. sanded them up to a D shape on top

Finished off with a pretty pic with the books that have been leading the way.

cheers Rob

a

The last of the back pictures.

Really nice work, I was hoping you might get some input on tapping of the wood from some of the experienced builders because I was wondering about that myself. I've been rapping on the wood with my knuckles and figured it was okay if it ringed but I'm not sure. Nice moulding plane, I've looked at hundreds of them over the years at the flea markets and have yet to find one that's useable.Mike

When tapping a top I look for resonance and sustain....I'll also make a note of the tone. I also evaluate the stiffness of the wood by flexing it between my fingers. All of the afore mentioned determine when a top is at final thickness and/or brace shaving/shaping is complete.

David Hurd goes into tap tuning in depth in his Left Brained Lutherie book. His basic contention is that free tapping is not as useful as setting up a test rig where soundboards can be tested for stiffness in various planes and then building to replicate the best sounding instrument. This makes sense to me as a free plate behaves differently to a plate tethered to sides. Also critical is the resonant volume of the box and matching that to the tuning of the instrument. Siminoff has a lot to say about this as well.

Also the timber in a neck is dampened by the players hand and the resonance of the back is cancelled out by the players belly / gut. So tapping is largely a waste of time. Still, I am a hopeless timber tapper. The local timber yards sussed me out ages ago and Im pretty sure everything I look seriously at gets repriced just for me. I like the experience of tapping.

Thanks for the information gentlemen, I'll see if I can pick up a copy of that book. When building electric guitars I tapped on the wood just to make sure there were'nt any hidden defects in the blank, acoustics I'm finding out are a completely different animal and I have to resist the urge to overbuild the structure.Mike

Good question back there Mike ,I have been wondering the same,that is about the tapping .
And as for the top I have been reading and looking on the net at as much Martin style bracing as I can, some say that Martin flat top bracing is what every thing else is judged by,and the 30s to 40s OM is a very desirable guitar, a great combinaion of body size to scale length and a fantastic sound ,
from the pictures I have seen so far of the bracing of these guitars,they dont look as radical in the scalloping as Kinkead or siminoff sugest . so if the beautifull old Martins sound so good ,[ I have never seen one in the flesh] , do the more scalloped ,thinned at the edges tops ,tapped tuned with meters ,guitars , better what some say is already fantastic?

Or a question I would like to ask Martin or Seb 56 or any one is ,when you went from your first build to your second and if you scalloped more than the first,how much of a change did you hear? 2% 5% 10% ?

Mike that moulding plane is a nice one but needed half an hours work before I used it , the sole was out of wack so I re shaped it back to the blade profile with some 120 grit on a 3/4 ' dowel , then 280 grit with oil and turps, then sharpened the blade . I have never come across one that did not need work, I have quite a few and I fix them up as I need them, the interesting thing about that one is that is that it has a blade set at cabinet pitch , cabinet pitch moulding planes are for cabinet timbers , the hardwoods ,the blade is more vertical to the sole than common pitch,more reclined ,for softwoods ,you dont find as many cabinet pitch as the others so I thought I would give it a try on the softwood brace, it worked ok but was a little harder to push .

Got my soundboard dish finished tonight, also did some experimenting with steam bending ebony for the binding, it dont bend. so I tried another method I read about on the net,where it is soaked in amonia, it still dont bend, ok I give up, so ivoroide binding is on the way with some black white black purfling and herringbone and ebony finger board. Hope to get a start on the soudboard bracing tomorrow.

Cheers Rob

Making the soundboard dish was much the same
as the back dish,but was stepped up a level in accuracy,
being asked to get a depth of 1.05 mm with a router
was a first ,so I did a test slot in some masonite in
picture 2 then with a feeler gauge in the slot rested
a cabinet scraper across the top, and adjusted the
cut down till level.

pic three I scribed the lines after giving the
stick a coat of black rather than drawing them on

pic four I planed the curve first with the bedrock 7
and fine tuned it with what is the finest plane I own,
a spiers improved pattern miter with a very fine mouth

pic 5 is glueing 120 grit paper to sticks

pic six traversing the dish with the compass plane
down close to the depth marks,from there it was
leveled with the cabinet scraper , then 80 grit with
the festo sander then marked with a pencil in pic
seven and sanded in with the sticks, each one made
to the length and depth of curve of the lines drawn in pic 1

pic 8 check depth with feeler gauge

pic 9 fin.

cheers Rob